In the mobile market at the moment one thing is very clear: Intel is not the preferred choice for processors like it is on the desktop. That crown falls to ARM which powers many on the smartphones in use today. The same looks set to be the case for tablet devices.

Intel knows it is losing the battle for penetration in the mobile sector, but has been working to ensure it can grab some market share next year. New Atom chips are coming, and they are set to make it into tablets in the first half of next year.

Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel, has stated we can expect to see 35 tablet devices using an Intel processor in 2011. What manufacturers and operating systems will be run has not been announced, but Intel has has been working on an Android x86 solution, and has had Android running on an Atom chip in a phone. On the smartphone front it looks like it may take longer for Intel to compete with ARM as the second-generation Medfield chip won’t ship until 2012.

The one advantage Intel has when turning up late in a market is their size. The chip giant can afford to plough money into mobile chips for a couple of years just to make a small dent in the market and build from there. But it’s still going to be a struggle.

Intel’s main partner on the desktop is not a major player in the mobile market at the moment. Windows Mobile 7 has only just been released, but it’s Android and iOS that are dominating. Only yesterday Google’s Andy Rubin tweeted that 300,000 Android phones are being activated every day. Each of those will likely carry an ARM processor, and yet we may be waiting until 2012 to see a chip from Intel that can compete.

We also can’t forget that ARM isn’t sitting still and continues to develop new chip architectures. The company’s ability to produce low power, performance processors means it can always stay one step ahead of Intel due to the market penetration it already has.